Girls Footy is well and truly underway at Rovers!
From humble beginnings a few years ago to a hiatus of a couple of years, 2017 and the advent of the AFLW saw a huge rise in girls participating in footy at grassroots level. Rovers were excited to have 2 girls teams last year and expressed big aspirations of having 4 in 2018. Little did we know that 3 of them would be in the same age group!
As rego numbers started climbing from the beginning of the year we had vision of three teams. Our U16s from last year were going up to U18s and recruited heavily to find themselves a squad of 30. Some of our registrations fell in to the U14 & U16 category and we couldn’t quite get these girls a team at Rovers but Zebbies stepped forward as part of our ongoing partnership and they are welcome additions to their teams.
Our U12 Premiers from last year came back in droves and had obviously spread the word that footy, and in particular Rovers, was the place to be! We found ourselves at the start of preseason with 2 teams, both having strong numbers. And then they kept rising, and rising!
U12 girls play the modified game of footy, with 12 on the ground as standard and a maximum of 15. At the end of round 1, with 25 in each team and a waitlist for registration we approached the SMJFL to see if we would be able to enter another team and get more girls playing footy rather than watching from the bench! With a positive response we have found ourselves opening registrations and rearranging 2 teams in to 3, all about 18-20 girls strong, eager to learn the game their brothers, male friends and cousins have had access to for a very long time.
What an exciting time for our daughters to be young.
#playlikeagirl #gorovers
Emma Nicholl
Rovers Girls Coordinator
